When someone asks ChatGPT "best skincare brand in India" — does your brand appear? What about on Gemini? Perplexity? Claude?
The May 2026 Cited Index answers that question for 202 brands across 8 categories. This is the second edition — and it's a fundamentally different dataset from March.
150 brands are new. 3 categories are new. Every brand that appeared in March now has a month-over-month delta showing exactly how much their AI visibility changed. And for the first time, we're cross-referencing Index rankings with GEO Score (website AI-readiness) and Crawl Radar (AI crawler access) data to surface stories the rankings alone can't tell.
Here's what the data says.
What Is the Cited Index
The Cited Index is a public benchmark measuring how Indian brands appear in AI-generated answers across four major platforms — ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Claude.
Each brand's score is its mention rate — the percentage of AI responses that mention the brand, averaged across all four platforms. A score of 91 means the brand appears in 91% of AI responses to prompts in its category. We also track average position (where in the response the brand is named — #1 means first), sentiment (positive, mixed, or negative), and framing (the specific language AI uses to describe the brand). We measure ungrounded responses — what the model knows about your brand from training, not what it finds via live web search. No RAG. No search grounding.
This distinction matters. Grounded responses tell you about Google's index. Ungrounded responses tell you what AI has actually internalized about your brand. That's the signal most benchmarks miss — and the one that determines whether AI recommends you when someone asks.
The full methodology is at getcited.in/cited-index.
What's New in May
150 brands added. The March edition tracked 52 brands across 5 categories. May tracks 202 across 8 — a 4x expansion. 42 of those are new entrants in existing categories (Travel & Luggage, Audio & Wearables, Skincare & Beauty, CRM & Sales, HR & Payroll). The remaining are first-edition brands in 3 entirely new categories.
3 new categories. Conversational AI Platforms (37 brands), Health & Wellness (23 brands), and Personal Grooming (11 brands). The first two are the largest categories in the Index by brand count. Personal Grooming is the smallest — but has the tightest race at the top.
Month-over-month deltas. Every brand that appeared in March now shows how its mention rate changed. The biggest swing: Re'equil's mention rate jumped from 30% to 48% while Zoho Payroll's dropped from 76% to 61% — a 33-percentage-point gap between the top gainer and the top decliner in the same edition.
Top Movers Up — and Why
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Re'equil (Skincare): 30% → 48% mention rate
The biggest single-brand jump in the entire Index. Re'equil went from appearing in 30% of AI responses to 48% — from #7 to #3 in Skincare. AI describes it with positive sentiment and functional language: "matte finish," "sweat-resistant," "non-comedogenic." Product-first framing, not marketing-speak.
For context, Re'equil's GEO Score is 55 with a "partial" Crawl Radar verdict. This isn't a story about technical optimization. The gain is more likely driven by what's happening off-site — editorial coverage, YouTube reviews, third-party mentions that AI is picking up.
Keka HR: 51% → 67.5% mention rate
Keka went from #4 to #1 in HR & Payroll — the most competitive B2B category in the Index. What makes this interesting: Keka's GEO Score is only 34, and Crawl Radar shows "mostly blocked." It has the highest mention rate in the category despite blocking most AI crawlers. That's pure brand authority — Layer 3 of the 3-Layer AI Visibility Stack overriding a broken Layer 1.
Darwinbox (HR & Payroll): 47.5% → 57.5% mention rate
HR & Payroll now has four brands within 10 percentage points of each other: Keka (67.5%), Zoho People (62.5%), Zoho Payroll (61.2%), and greytHR (61.2%). This is the most competitive category in the Index — any of them could be #1 next month.
Other notable gains
The Derma Co (Skincare): 52% → 61% — jumped to #2 with mixed sentiment ("affordable, dermatologist-backed"). Minimalist (Skincare): 83% → 91% — still the undisputed #1, mentioned first on average (position #1.6), with positive sentiment ("affordable, ingredient-first, fragrance-free"). Kylas CRM: 15% → 23.8%. Freshsales: 67.5% → 73.8%. Samsonite (Travel): 72% → 78.1%.
Skincare's top three all moved up — Minimalist, The Derma Co, and Re'equil. The category is consolidating around a clear hierarchy, and the brands at the top are not only mentioned more often — they're mentioned earlier in AI responses and described in product-first language.
Top Movers Down — and What It Means
Zoho Payroll: 76% → 61.2% mention rate
The largest single drop. Zoho Payroll went from #1 to #3 in HR & Payroll (behind Keka and Zoho People). It still appears in 61% of AI responses — but the direction matters. In a category this competitive, a 15-percentage-point drop means someone else is gaining share of voice faster.
Pipedrive (CRM): 35% → 22.5% mention rate
International CRM losing ground to Indian alternatives. In the same edition, Zoho CRM rose to 93.8%, Freshsales to 73.8%, and Kylas CRM to 23.8%. Indian SaaS brands with Indian customer stories are gaining share of voice in AI recommendations.
Delsey (Travel): 40.9% → 29.2% mention rate
The largest drop in Travel & Luggage. American Tourister (79.2%) and Samsonite (78.1%) continue to dominate the category. Delsey's slide widens the gap between the top 2 and the rest of the field.
Other notable drops: Plum (Skincare) 38% → 29% — dropped from #3 to #6 with mixed sentiment. Jabra (Audio) 15% → 7%.
New Categories
Conversational AI Platforms — 37 brands
Yellow.ai leads at 80. Haptik follows at 65. Then a steep drop to Gupshup at 41.
India has one of the most competitive Conversational AI sectors in the world — and this is the first public benchmark measuring how those platforms appear in AI answers. The 15-point gap between Yellow.ai and Haptik is wide. Below the top 3, most brands cluster in the 15-30 range.
Cross-product insight: Yellow.ai scores 80 on both the Index and GEO Score — strong across both visibility and technical readiness. Haptik has an Index of 65 but a GEO Score of only 41. Its visibility is driven by brand authority, not site optimization.
Health & Wellness — 23 brands
No clear leader. Wellbeing Nutrition tops the category at 47. Kapiva follows at 41. Carbamide Forte at 40.
For perspective: Skincare has Minimalist at 91. CRM has Zoho CRM at 93.8. Health & Wellness has nobody above 50.
This is a market worth over ₹9,000 Cr in India with zero AI visibility leaders. The brand that invests in AI visibility first — structured content, review presence, YouTube strategy, third-party coverage — has a genuine first-mover opportunity.
Personal Grooming — 11 brands
The tightest race in the Index. The Man Company leads at 75. Beardo is at 72. Ustraa at 70. Five points separating the top 3.
At the bottom: Gillette at 6%, Syska at 5%, Philips at 10%. Another case of global brands being invisible to India-specific AI prompts — despite massive brand recognition in traditional channels.
The Cross-Product Story
For the first time, we're cross-referencing three data layers for the brands in this Index:
- Cited Index — how often AI cites the brand (the "what")
- GEO Score — how ready the brand's website is for AI (the "can")
- Crawl Radar — whether AI crawlers can access the site (the "access")
Most rankings give you one layer. The stories emerge when you combine all three.
The "Content Gap" brands
Three brands stand out with excellent GEO Scores, clean Crawl Radar verdicts — and low Index scores:
| Brand | Category | GEO Score | Index Score | Crawl Radar |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RazorpayX Payroll | HR & Payroll | 88 | 31.2 | Clean |
| Tally | HR & Payroll | 75 | 11.2 | Clean |
| Fixderma | Skincare | 69 | 13.0 | Clean |
Their websites are well-structured. AI crawlers can access everything. But AI barely cites them. The gap is content authority — Layer 2 (Citability) and Layer 3 (Authority) of the AI Visibility Stack. These brands have the technical foundation. What's missing is third-party coverage, review presence, and editorial mentions in their category context.
The "Paradox" brand
Foxtale ranks #8 in Skincare (Index 25) — but blocks all 10 AI crawlers we tested. Its visibility comes entirely from what others say about the brand — YouTube reviews, Reddit threads, beauty publication mentions. Layer 3 without Layer 1. It works, but it's fragile: one editorial cycle and that visibility could evaporate with no foundation to catch it.
We'll publish the full cross-product analysis in The AI Shelf this week.
Methodology
The Cited Index measures ungrounded AI responses across 4 platforms:
- ChatGPT (GPT-5.5)
- Gemini (Gemini 3)
- Perplexity (Sonar Pro)
- Claude (Claude Sonnet 4.6)
Each category has a custom prompt library — 25 non-branded consumer-intent prompts per category, generating 100 AI responses per brand (25 prompts x 4 platforms). The score is the mention rate: the percentage of those responses that mention the brand, averaged across all 4 platforms. We also track average position (where the brand appears in the response — #1 means first), sentiment (positive, mixed, or negative), and framing tags (the specific language AI uses to describe the brand).
"Ungrounded" means no web search, no RAG, no real-time retrieval. We measure what the model has internalized about a brand through its training data — not what it can Google in the moment. This is a fundamentally different signal from grounded search results, and it's the one most visibility tools don't track.
The Index runs monthly. The June 2026 edition will ship in 4 weeks.
Where to Go From Here
The full May 2026 Cited Index — all 202 brands, 8 categories, month-over-month deltas, and per-platform breakdowns — is live at getcited.in/cited-index.
If your brand is in the Index, see where you stand and how you moved. If it's not, run your free GEO Score to check your website's AI-readiness — it takes 30 seconds and covers the Layer 1 signals that every brand should have in place.
FAQ
What is the Cited Index?
The Cited Index is a public benchmark that ranks Indian brands by AI visibility — how often they appear in AI-generated answers across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Claude. Each brand's score is its mention rate (0-100%), with additional dimensions: average position in the response, sentiment (positive/mixed/negative), and framing tags showing how AI describes the brand. It measures ungrounded responses to capture what AI has internalized about each brand.
How many brands does the May 2026 edition track?
202 brands across 8 categories: Travel & Luggage, Audio & Wearables, Skincare & Beauty, Health & Wellness, Personal Grooming, CRM & Sales, HR & Payroll, and Conversational AI Platforms.
What does "ungrounded" mean?
Ungrounded responses are what the AI model produces without using web search or retrieval tools. This measures what the model knows from training data — not what it can find in real time. It's the purest measure of whether AI has actually learned about your brand.
How often is the Cited Index updated?
Monthly. The next edition (June 2026) will ship approximately 4 weeks after this one.
My brand isn't in the Index. How do I get included?
The Index covers brands that appear in AI responses for category-specific prompts in the Indian market. As we expand categories and prompt libraries, more brands will be included. In the meantime, run your free GEO Score to assess your website's AI-readiness.